You see, the point is that there is no happy story for Walker, he doesn't deserve one from the start. Let's put aside the fact that the game doesn't actually blame the player (because that would be absurd, indeed), the point here is that including a choice would go completly against the point Spec Ops is trying to make. The game had a scripted event, didn't give the player any choice and then seemingly blames the player for it (according to them), this is hypocritical and bad. Whereas the previous misconception is from many of the games fans, this is the misconception from the games detractors. Spec Ops: The Line should have been about choice The trick that Spec Ops pulls, you see, is putting the average jarhead video game shooter protagonist (Walker) in a situation where the average jarhead video game shooter protagonist mindset (shoot everything) doesn't lead to the typical video game shooter ending, namely happiness and cake. Spec Ops is about games, it's about violence, sure, but violence in games (which maybe can be stretched to violence in media), virtual violence is the key word, and how misleading it can be. There's a reason why Walker is an incredibly generic video game shooter protagonist, and why the three characters are virtually unstoppable to an almost ridiculous degree (despite being as grounded as a game taking place in postapocalyptic Dubai can be, no one ever questions the difficulty of fighting against an entire regiment), and above all, there's a reason why Spec Ops is a game and not a movie or a book, and it is thus: I do understand where this misconception is coming from, Spec Ops is one of the few games where violence and shooting is portrayed as weary, loud, chaotic, unpleasant and an overall nasty business, and you might think that this is enough for the game to promptly declare itself to be anti-war and then leave it at that, but it's not what the game is about at all. Closely related, maybe, but unless you think war is three seemingly unvincible people shooting their way through a postapocalyptic city, you're probably familiar with way more awesome wars than I am. And if you think about it for a few minutes, you too will realise the game isn't about war. This, I think, is from the two major misconceptions about the game. Despite being one of the best looking (aethetically), polished and detailed shooters out there, the only thing that's up for discussion is the bloody WP scene. Despite being one of my favorite games (and my favorite game narrative) I actually dread taking about Spec Ops, because it's basically a virtual ballet of the same arguments repeated ad nauseum, "I didn't like they didn't give me a choice and called me a villain", "that's the point", "that's stupid", "you're stupid", and what's left is seemingly nothing interesting at all.
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